Any 21st century traveler has faced this hopeless predicament—lost on some remote highway, no paper maps, and a horrifying lack of Internet. For those of us reliant on Google Maps, the situation used to be bleak. But Google released the ultimate fix today (for Android users at least).

To utilize this, simply bring up the area of choice and select "Make available offline" from the menu to verify what you'd like to save. Maps then estimates the file size a user would be taking on and asks for confirmation before saving it. Google even notes that if you have GPS enabled on the device, "the blue dot will still work without a data connection so you know where you are, and if your device has a compass, you can orient yourself without 3G or WiFi connectivity."

The new Maps update for Android also includes an improved Compass Mode for Street View. Users will need Android 3.0 or higher, a gyroscope sensor, and version 1.8.1 of Street View on Google Maps to utilize this function.

"this update allows users to select then save a region of a map from more than 150 countries for offline use. In the new Maps version, users can save up to six large metro areas for the offline use."

Why the limitation? Nokia maps allow you to store as much as your memory can hold (yeah I know, Symbian is dead, but the offline maps is the primary reason I haven't gone iPhone/Android yet), I understand that there are a number of map apps for iPhone and Android that behave similarly.

For well-known areas like going from the Bay Area to Lake Tahoe, can you do the whole trip offline?

How about comparable distances in lesser-known areas, in other countries?

Without a mobile data option, you will have to cache the maps in order to be able to use this overseas.

If you can, this could kill what's left of the standalone GPS market.

The "metro" areas could mean you couldn't drive in the countryside of many European countries without a data connection.

For instance, on a recent trip, I drove in Tuscany and all the regions around Bologna and up to Venice. A lot of these places are very popular tourist destinations but they're also smaller towns. They're not necessarily close to big cities or what might be considered "metro" areas.

I guess they'd cover big cities like Paris, Rome and London but smaller towns?

For well-known areas like going from the Bay Area to Lake Tahoe, can you do the whole trip offline?

I have all of Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Napa, Marin, Sonoma, Lake, and Mendocino counties in my offline maps right now. I reckon you could probably do SF to Tahoe offline no problem (especially because there's fewer features in rural areas, it takes up less space to cache the info.)

Will these caches also save place data? The labs version seems to only cache map tiles - any querying of local information still needs an internet connection.

Back in the days when internet on the go meant tethering a PDA to a feature phone via cable or Bluetooth, I had a map program for the Pocket PC which cached as much of the US as you could fit into memory, POIs and all. I seem to recall most of the southern US fit on a 1 GB card with plenty of room to spare. So why can't we do that now, with "21st Century" technology? If I could cache my local area, even my entire metro area, it would greatly reduce data usage.

Don't get me wrong, I've got true unlimited data, but it never seems to work when I want it or need it. I'd happily trade the data being a week or a month out of date for instant access anywhere.

For well-known areas like going from the Bay Area to Lake Tahoe, can you do the whole trip offline?

I have all of Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Napa, Marin, Sonoma, Lake, and Mendocino counties in my offline maps right now. I reckon you could probably do SF to Tahoe offline no problem (especially because there's fewer features in rural areas, it takes up less space to cache the info.)

It looks like the max is about 70x70 miles. I have one centered on the LA zoo about that size, anyway.

Remember if you go past the max tile size, you can just make multiple tiles to take up the region you want. This may also help if the target region isn't square (I just got maybe 100 miles of coastline in four boxes, because I don't care much about the inland areas or open ocean).

It would be nice if this was automagic. Its been useful (labs version) when I've traveled to foreign countries before and know ahead that I won't have service. Its killed me not to have it a few times when I'm traveling somewhere my data plan is usually fine only to lose service due to weather or something...

Just use a real navigation application if you want to have an entire continent on your phone. On my antique Windows Mobile 6.0 phone, I have all of Western Europe in Tomtom, and it takes up less than a GB. It may not have as much information as Google Maps; and, sure, downloading a city you know you will be travelling to when you're still at home through Google Maps is nice; but in general, offline navigation applications are the way to go. Waze probably has decent open-source maps that you can download and save?

As mentioned, it seems the limit is about 70mi by 70mi, and it comes to 80mb per map section. You can overlap your sections and extend that as far as you like, of course.

It's not limited to metro areas, you can grab whatever you like.

IIRC, the labs version was limited to 10mi by 10mi around where you clicked. I'm sure there are other differences, but the new version is definitely easier to use. Plus, now, you can use navigation with no signal as long as you have the tiles downloaded. Previously, no.

It's nice to move this from "Labs" to standard, but it still seems weak. I think my old garmin GPS has all its road + topo maps including restaurants and gas stations, etc, in US + Canada in a 1GiB card and can do route planning on it. That thing has no network access of any kind.

They own actual map data (as opposed to licensing it from others). They'll live on as a back-end provider, or else get bought by someone. And Garmin has diversified enough into aviation, nautical, fleet, and sports devises that they will also outlive the death of their automotive products.

Both also offer software-only versions that still perform better for strict turn-by-turn than almost all other cell phone implementations, although that may be living on borrowed time. (One thing that Google has that no one else can easily match is Street View, and that includes the dedicated GPS vendors.)

Yeah, this seems pointless without the ability to conduct a search and find a path with only the local data. I mean i guess it's nice that I have the map and could navigate by eyeballing it... but that's no better than a paper map (or an iPhone )

Yeah, this seems pointless without the ability to conduct a search and find a path with only the local data. I mean i guess it's nice that I have the map and could navigate by eyeballing it... but that's no better than a paper map (or an iPhone )

When your GPS position is overlayed on the offline map, you know where you are at that moment.

Useful if you're travelling out of the country and don't want to enable International Data just to know where you are on the map.

Once again, Nokia is waaay ahead in functionality while being waaay behind in UX. I've had searchable street maps of the whole of Australia on my Nokias since 2008, but admittedly Nokia's UX has never been the best so it was a compelling feature that only those with the tolerance for a somewhat clunky UX would ever discover.

No offline navigation severely limits the usefulness of this. Almost everyone has a big sdcard, just let us download the entire country with al POIs, nav data and even street view at turns on a planned route.

I've been using oMaps on my iPhone for years. It has the same UX where you zoom to an area and then press save. If you travel to a single city that's okay. But when you travel to multiple destinations it becomes a hassle.

On a recent trip to Japan I used MapsWithMe it allows me to download an entire country and doesn't take up several gigs. Being able to say to your phone "I'm off to Japan" and then the phone takes care of the rest. Is just sooooo much better user experience.

I was disappointed to find out that this supposedly new functionality did not support offline directions, as had been announced previously.

Many apps currently on the Play Store have supported offline download of raster map tiles for years, including my own, MyTrails. They offer download not only of the map view, but also satellite and other map providers besides (topo-oriented maps, for example, which are more relevant when out in the countryside).

Like most people, I own a phone running 2.3.x with a 4.0 update "coming soon".Like most people, I'm beginning to think it's "coming soon" in the same way as jet packs, fusion powerplants and a real android to help with household chores.I'm sure this is great for the small percentage of users with the latest version of Android. Or maybe the second latest, now that 4.1 has been officially revealed.

I guess I'll have to keep using the offline cache of Maps (-), though it's not the most convenient thing to set up.

When you have network access, will it use the offline version or download it? Potentially the offline could be out of date at the time, but I would prefer the quick access of offline.

This is from a "completely-unscientific-just-tried-it-to-see-what-happens"-perspective - I downloaded the map of my area for offline, then killed the Maps process and opened Maps again. It certainly is very fast to display my area, very smooth panning and zooming, when trying another nearby town (which I didn't download) the loading times are evident despite having a somewhat fast net connection. So in my experience, it _seems_ to use offline data when available, but take that as you will.

(offline search for street names would be great though, offline navigation would be even better)